The following is pulled from a talk given by the President of the Oakland Stake in California in Fall 2010, as reported by Carol Lynn Pearson, a member of that stake, in a talk she gave in the recent Mormon Stories Conference entitled “No More Us Vs. Them”.

Our purpose is to enlarge the tent of Zion by showing an increase in charity, both as individuals and as congregations. In short, Jesus challenged his disciples “enlarge the tent of Zion” so that it was big enough to cover literally everyone who had a desire to accept the good news. Several years ago, a set of full-time missionaries introduced me to a lovely lady whom they had been teaching for months. She attended church services regularly here on Temple Hill, but she was making no progress toward baptism. During our visit, this lady told me this:

Look, I love to come up to the temple grounds and join in singing the hymns and I enjoy the friendship of the worshipers. I also appreciate the special spirit of love the missionaries bring into my home, but honestly, I don’t believe a word they say about Joseph Smith or the Book of Mormon. Of course I respect those who do, and I would never say or do anything disrespectful or disruptive.

Is the tent of the Oakland Stake large enough to cover this lady and others like her? Yes! Of course. The Church is not just for committed members, because “charity seeketh not her own“.

I remember reading a Robert Millet book (his one on Depression) where he told of a friend who left the church for a more mainstream Christian church and took his family with him. He commented to Millet that although the Mormons profess following Christ, inside the Mormon church he never found Christ. But he found it in the new sect.

I am a wavering Mormon. It is nice knowing there are some who want to accept me just as much as the un-wavering members.